Post Doklam resolution, Nirmala Sitharaman to visit tri-junction border area

NEW DELHI: Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be visiting forward areas near the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction for a first-hand review of the operational ground situation in the region on Saturday, with both Indian and Chinese militaries continuing to maintain higher force-levels there despite disengaging from the tense troop face-off at Doklam on August 28.

Sitharaman, who will be accompanied by Army vice-chief Lt-General Sarath Chand, will also receive a briefing at the headquarters of 17 Mountain Division at Gangtok, apart from interacting with troops at the Nathu La and other border outposts as well as undertaking aerial reconnaissance of the forward areas near the tri-junction, said sources.

The Army commanders' conference, to be chaired by General Bipin Rawat from October 9 to 15 in New Delhi, will also review the military readiness along the entire 4,057-km Line of Actual Control with China, stretching from LAC from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh, in addition to other issues.

The 17 Division, which has four brigades of over 3,000 soldiers each, is at the centre of the forward troop deployment near the tri-junction. Indian and Chinese troops disengaged from the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation on the Bhutanese territory of Doklam, which is coveted by China, after 73 days due to hectic diplomatic parleys.

But around 600 soldiers from each side, separated by just 400 to 500 meters, are still keeping a watchful tab on each other on the Doklam bowl. The Indian soldiers are deployed in and around their Doka La post, from where they had come down the ridge slope to physically block the Chinese troops from constructing the road in the Doklam bowl towards the Jampheri Ridge on June 16.

Both sides have also kept larger forces in the vicinity as a show of strength. After the confrontation erupted in mid-June, the two countries had pumped in additional infantry battalions as well as armoured (tanks), artillery, missile and air defence units to the region to back their small number of troops on the actual face-off site, as was then reported by TOI.

The People's Liberation Army, in recent days, has also taken to upgrading and widening its existing motorable road in the region, which is about 10-km north and east of the face-off site, to buttress its claim over the entire Doklam region, as was reported on Thursday.

India has not objected to this fresh road-construction activity by the PLA because it is not towards the Jampheri Ridge, which overlooks the strategically-vulnerable Siliguri Corridor or so-called "Chicken's Neck" area, to the south of the face-off site like the earlier attempt in mid-June.